Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

27.10.15

THE NATIONAL COALITION IN FAVOR OF CAMPUS CENSORSHIP.

Thus does Eugene Volokh correctly characterize the latest group complaint from the Perpetually Aggrieved. There's apparently a short-distance social media forum called Yik Yak that allows people to anonymously vent for the edification, or the baiting, of anyone else who also subscribed. And saying mean things about the Perpetually Aggrieved, or their mascots, must be prosecuted. It's just another ploy for the purveyors of failed academic policies to make people who point out the failures shut up.

It seems their real goal is to silence dissent on campus by eliminating students’ ability to express their opinions anonymously. The ability to speak anonymously gives moderate and conservative students a chance to speak without [being] vilified or punished by left-wing campus administrators or bullied by student government officials (who sometimes defund campus newspapers for having the temerity to print a moderate or conservative viewpoint about a racial or sexual issue.).

Yes, and it also gives people the opportunity to voice heresies that Student Affairs would rather not hear. Apparently, as Mr Volokh's column notes, more than a few posters have figured out that "protected-status-minority" is the latest euphemism for "not-college-ready." But how dare you point that out! And on social media, it's no longer a muttered remark in confidence among people who trust each other, it's out there for all to see, but impossible for the Organs of State Security to catch. Thus, the Perpetually Aggrieved require Organs of State Security. Mr Volokh notes, good luck with that.

Of course, if Yik Yak and the other applications listed in the letter are banned from campus networks — which would, of course, block access to all speech on the applications, whether the speech is threatening or not — then either (1) the ban will be ineffective, given students’ ability to access those sites from their own cellular devices or (2) the speech will migrate elsewhere, onto new applications. Presumably universities would then need to ban access to those applications as well, running a constantly expanding Great Firewall of China American Higher Education. And since many states ban discrimination in education based on religion and sexual orientation as well as race and sex, the logic of the coalition’s arguments would equally apply to speech that harshly criticizes certain religions or sexual orientations.

Not to mention that using social media to conduct study sessions where any of the readings are triggering or contrary to the Received Ethos, or where there are strong objections to the works supposedly promoting the Received Ethos, would also have to be shut down and the readers brought up on charges.

So why are the Perpetually Aggrieved so eager to silence dissents? Might it be because their ideas are miserable failures, whenever they are tried. Or might it be that it's not boutique multiculturalism that induces the Perpetually Aggrieved to stand up for Moslems, rather, it's anger envy?

Apparently leaders of the Islamic world present a non-negotiable demand to the West that they be given a blank check for their governments to defame Jews, Christians, and Americans, but the United States must condemn any private individual who, quite apart from the knowledge of the U.S. government, does the same to Muslims. That is the issue, and anything less than an unapologetic defense of free speech is not only a betrayal of our Constitution, but a very dangerous concession that will only incite more violence in the near future. Unfortunately, Western hedging, appeasement, and apologies to theocrats and authoritarians have never won gratitude, but instead such magnanimity is seen as either weakness to be exploited or proof all along that the apologizer admits culpability and will do so again in the future.

Yeah, that's back to the notorious video that Hillary Clinton tried to sell to the public as the cause of the fatal protest at an improperly secured consulate. But that's how the Perpetually Aggrieved roll. It's permissible for the various deanlets, deanlings, and conscience-cowboys in Student Affairs and their fellow-travelers in student government to defame normal Americans whilst turning anything normal Americans do in their defense as a thought-crime. The good news is that normal people on campus will not be ghettoized by politically correct cupcakes. Otherwise these attempts to further circumscribe social media would not have been necessary.

And there's a Slate essay by Eric Posner, also in the aftermath of the sack of the consulate, that's likely to give succor to the Perpetually Aggrieved.

Americans need to learn that the rest of the world—and not just Muslims—see no sense in the First Amendment. Even other Western nations take a more circumspect position on freedom of expression than we do, realizing that often free speech must yield to other values and the need for order. Our own history suggests that they might have a point.

Yes, that was how the politically correct crowd first sold their introduction of euphemism, as a way of encouraging people to watch what they say and not unnecessarily antagonize others. That used to be known as good manners, but such a bourgeois notion! Keep reading Mr Posner's essay.

The First Amendment did not protect anarchists, socialists, Communists, pacifists, and various other dissenters when the U.S. government cracked down on them, as it regularly did during times of war and stress.

The First Amendment earned its sacred status only in the 1960s, and then only among liberals and the left, who cheered when the courts ruled that government could not suppress the speech of dissenters, critics, scandalous artistic types, and even pornographers. Conservatives objected that these rulings helped America’s enemies while undermining public order and morality at home, but their complaints fell on deaf ears.

A totem that is sacred to one religion can become an object of devotion in another, even as the two theologies vest it with different meanings. That is what happened with the First Amendment. In the last few decades, conservatives have discovered in its uncompromising text— “Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech”—support for their own causes. These include unregulated campaign speech, unregulated commercial speech, and limited government. Most of all, conservatives have invoked the First Amendment to oppose efforts to make everyone, in universities and elsewhere, speak “civilly” about women and minorities. I’m talking of course about the “political correctness” movement beginning in the 1980s, which often merged into attempts to enforce a leftist position on race relations and gender politics.

Meanwhile, some liberals began to have second thoughts. They supported enactment of hate-crime laws that raised criminal penalties for people who commit crimes against minorities because of racist or other invidious motives. They agreed that hate speech directed at women in the workplace could be the basis of sexual harassment claims against employers as well. However, the old First Amendment victories in the Supreme Court continued to play an important role in progressive mythology. For the left, the amendment today is like a dear old uncle who enacted heroic deeds in his youth but on occasion says embarrassing things about taboo subjects in his decline.

Put another way, without the protection of the First Amendment, the Perpetually Aggrieved would not have been able to trash the institutions, then get control of the levers of power, and then decide the First Amendment had outlived its usefulness.

The world doesn’t love the First Amendment? So what? This is one instance where we’re right and the rest of the world is wrong. Besides, I don’t love societies that make women dress in sacks and/or kill people for changing their religion. So until the Islamic world develops a thicker skin, I don’t care what it thinks about anything at all.

That generalizes to the Yik Yak banners. I don't love academic administrators who trammel inquiry when it suits them. So until the Perpetually Aggrieved learn to properly engage ideas, I don't care how macro-aggressive they think I am. It was wrong for leaders of higher education to be against free expression on You Tube in 2012, and it is wrong for leaders of higher education to be against free expression on Yik Yak today.